Self-parking is a welcome feature of autonomous vehicles. Imagine pulling up to a large shopping center or crowded sporting event and not having to deal with the hassles of parking—waiting in a long line of cars, fighting for a spot, and then dealing with departing traffic.

Of course, there's already a solution for those who can afford it: valet parking. Automakers such as BMW, Telsa, and Volvo have all shown or even offer some form of automated parking, but such solutions require sensors and software that won't be available on a critical mass of vehicles for a while.

Bosch is taking a different approach, one that allows most modern cars to park themselves even if they don't have autonomous technology. All that's required is an automatic transmission, electronic stability control, an electric parking brake and steering, engine start/stop, and onboard connectivity.

Instead of expensive and sophisticated self-driving sensors built into the car, they're integrated into the parking garage, including lidar and the technology needed to calculate distances and ensure compliance with safety regulations. More than just a concept, Bosch has been testing its self-parking technology for almost a year at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

It will be available soon, and I had the chance to check it out.

Pick Up and Drop-Off Using an App

When it becomes available later this year, museum guests will be able to leave their vehicles at a designated drop-off area and send them off to park using a smartphone app. After the parking garage identifies the vehicle, it's guided to an assigned space. When museum visitors are ready to leave, they can summon the car to the pick-up area using the app.

The technology in the garage and in the car work in tandem to safely maneuver the car to a designated spot. Normally, no one would be in the vehicle, but I got to ride in a ghost car as it maneuvered through the parking garage and up several levels.

While the Mercedes E-Class test car moved much slower through a garage than I would—and did some hard, low-speed braking at things I couldn't see—overall the operation was impressive. A Bosch representative walked in front of the car to show how it will stop if it detects an object in its path, which made for a great sideshow for curious museum visitors.

Bosch supplies the sensors and communications technology for the garage infrastructure, Daimler provide the pilot vehicles, and both are working on the interaction between infrastructure and vehicle. Bosch and Mercedes-Benz plan to use the project to gather data on automated self-parking, and it allows them to study how to retrofit existing parking garages with the technology.

While that may be expensive for existing parking garages, the pay-off for garage operators is fitting up to 20 percent more vehicles into the same space, according to Bosch. And it's much less expensive than outfitting cars with technology that allows them to park themselves in the same manner, says Dr. Rolf Bulander, a member of Bosch's board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business unit.

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"The idea is to deliver automation for cars which are prepared for automation," Bulander told me in Stuttgart. "The intelligence is in the garage and not in the car. This way it's much cheaper than to have thousands of cars automated."

The technology works with any car, and Bosch views automated valet parking "as a cross-OEM approach. We are talking to other OEMs as well as parking lot managers," a spokesperson told me.

This means that self-driving cars could be here soon, although we won't get to ride in them. And we won't have to ever tip a valet again—or deal with door dings.

About the Author

Doug Newcomb is a recognized expert on the subject of car technology within the auto industry and among the automotive and general media, and a frequent speaker at automotive and consumer electronics industry events. Doug began his career in 1988 at the car stereo trade publication Mobile Electronics, before serving as editor of the leading consume... See Full Bio

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